Acts 2:36-39

I'm reading through Acts right now. Today this passage struck me.

"Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."
These are Peter's words and my first response was "CRAP! That passage could be (and probably has been) used for all kinds of anti-Semitic ideology/theology." But luckily it doesn't end there.

Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."
Hallelujah!! Even to those who put Jesus to death is offered the Holy Spirit.

"For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."

Of course if we understand that we all participated in Christ's death this is good news for all of us!

It's only a small realization but I'm glad for this gift today.

The Tempations of Christ

As I was reading my bible this morning I seemed to get stuck on Christ's responses to Satan's temptations that appear in Matthew.

They are as follows:

Matt 4:4
But he answered, "It is written, 'Man shall not live by bread along, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.' "

Matt 4:7
"Again it is written,'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.' "

Matt 4:10
Then Jesus said to him, "Be gone, Satan! For it is written, 'You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve,' "

A couple of thoughts:

1.) I have some very selfish reasons for wanting to be able to live Jesus' first response - maybe I would eat less food. (I'm not trying to be funny - just honest)

2.) what's the difference between 'putting God to the test' and 'taste and see that the Lord is good' - the only thing that comes to mind is that the motive is probably different. (I need to do some research on this)

3.) why didn't Jesus say "Be gone, Satan!" after the first temptation Satan threw out. I assume that Jesus understood the Father's will for there to be three temptations before Jesus would be given the power to make Satan go away. But I wonder if maybe Satan's request was SO offensive that Jesus needed to cast him out. The idea of Satan just coming out and asking Jesus to worship him was so off the charts unacceptable (and definately less sublte than the other requests) that it was time for Satan to go.